Malachite and Salmon

644 rue de l'Eglise, Ottawa

 It's heartening to see how a splash of paint, a cared-for lawn, two planters and a handful of shrubs can bring such charm to an otherwise modest building.

 #644 is one of three identical six-unit blocks on rue de l'Eglise — its companions, 650 and 656 sit immediately to its right (you can see part of 650 on the left-hand edge of the photo) about a block south of Montreal Road. They were built some time between 1956 and 1958, part of a local post-war boom in affordable rental housing which saw the development of nearby Manor Park, Rockledge Terrace, Overbrook, and Eastview.

 And yes, I did mean to say "nearby" Eastview. De l'Eglise ("of the Church"), was named for Eastview's graceful Notre Dame Church* which stood at its north end, but the street never actually lay within the historic Eastview/Vanier city limits.

 The Village of Eastview was founded in 1908, combining the communities of Clandeboye, Clarkstown and Janeville. It became a town in 1913 and a city in 1963. In 1969 it was renamed Vanier to honour the recently deceased Governor General, Georges Vanier. The city became part of Ottawa under the 2001 amalgamation.

 The poorly understood borders of this former city-within-a-city are discussed in a post at VanierNow, sensibly titled "The Borders of Vanier." It begins...

Until Vanier’s amalgamation with Ottawa in 2001, the boundaries of this one square mile had remained constant since 1909. Yet (even after nearly 100 years) few people, if put on the spot, could draw Vanier’s outer edges correctly. Today, despite amalgamation, while the Vanier neighbourhood remains firmly imprinted within Ottawa, its precise boundaries remain elusive to many...

 I've marked the north end of de l'Eglise and #644 ("X") in red, on a 1970s map of Vanier hosted by VanierNow. Notre Dame Church is shown in green. (Click to enlarge.)

 Most Ottawans think of Vanier as being bounded on the east by St. Laurent Blvd, but apparently this was never the case. The city's southern half was contained by a line running from Ducharme Blvd at Montreal Road down to Belisle St at McArthur — never closer to St. Laurent than some 580 metres.

 From Montreal Road at Ducharme, the border ran east just past the grounds of Notre Dame de Lourdes Church, still 280 metres short of St. Laurent. And there it hung a left directly into Notre Dame Cemetery.

 Presumeably, this gerrymander made perfect sense to someone at the time, but it effectively cut the graveyard into two sections, one in then-Eastview and one in Ottawa. Thankfully, both church and cemetery now sit entirely in the same ward — #13, Rideau-Rockcliffe. Oh but look — according to geoOttawa, the Notre Dame Grotto, once the gem of church grounds, is now part of ward #12, Rideau-Vanier, hidden behind a high-rise and a cluster of row houses.

 Sitting just east of Vanier, de l'Eglise (formerly "Church Avenue") was indeed part of the City of Ottawa when #644 was built.  By then Ottawa extended as far east as Blair Road (then "Skead") — Eastview/Vanier was truly a city inside a city.

 As to that sliver of Ottawa between Ducharme and St. Laurent, some call it Castle Heights. It sort of bleeds into Overbrook toward the south. Some even claim that the Heights cross St. Laurent, stretching even further east, while others call that land Forbes. Whatever — just don't call it Vanier.

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 Anyone researching the history of Eastview/Vanier should note that while de l'Eglise was originally called "Church Avenue," there was another road of the same name in the northern part of Eastview "proper." Oddly I can find no indication that it ever featured a church. It was eventually renamed St. Jacques.

Ottawa City Directory

*The original stone church was built in 1887-88, designed by the Canon Bouillon who patterned it after the Basilica of Notre-Dame-de-Lourdes in France. It was destroyed by fire in May of 1973, along with the adjoining St. Jean Scholasticate (1901). There were no deaths or injuries, but all documents, including the books in the Scholasticate library as well as the archives, were lost. Only the church’s bells were recovered from the ashes, and they were subsequently incorporated into a new church, built in 1975 at the site of the original.